Wizard build advice.

[[Brizby]]

I am looking to make a new game with my main as a Wizard.

I would like to play a glass cannon so to speak. I love things that go boom.

What would be a good race, starting stats and the first couple levels of feats ect I should get. What confuses me is, should I use a bow or xbow for auto attacks? or should I have acid, ice or the other spell as my auto attacks unless I cast a spell.

Thanks in advance!

[Roadie]

For a glass cannon wizard, you should dump Strength as low as possible, so don't even bother using a bow because the damage would be the same as a cantrip anyway, and the cantrips use ranged touch attacks so they're more likely to hit.

If you want to mostly make stuff explode, focus on Evocation, and the feats Spell Focus and Spell Penetration to boost your spell DCs. Your main stat is Int more than anything else (boosts spell DCs and number of spells you can memorize), with Dex secondary because it adds to your AC and ranged attack rolls.

For the spells to use, try and get things that either have a guaranteed effect on a ranged touch, or that don't use an attack roll and have a partial effect even if the enemy successfully saves against them. Watch out for area effects, though, because if they just target "creatures" rather than "enemies" they'll also affect your allies!

[[Brizby]]

Thank you

[[TGC] MadGod]

I agree with Roadie on the strength matter. For a glass cannon wizard it is useless. Usually you do not choose a wizard for classical "blasting" tho. Sorcerer is your friend there, since you are planning to chuck out the versatility of wizard anyway.

But I am not a friend of sorcerers and you want a wizard..but mind you that there are very very powerful sorcerer blaster builds, but I am rather a wizard/cleric/fighter person. :)

Mind the following things:

1. A glass cannon means : Dead enemies cannot hurt me. Therefore you will need improved initiative and maybe a hare familiar for a +8 to initiative. You might want to go for 12 or 14 dex. That will make you "go first" in many combat situations and you can hurt the enemy before they can hurt you.

2. pick your opposed schools carefully. necromancy and illusion are a good overall pick. You cannot become invisble and you do not get "false life". But you are a glass cannon. :) Maybe even pick thessalonian specialist, but I have no experience with that archetype.

3. Even if you are a glass cannon, you will want HP and fortitude saves. Even if it hurts, put a 14 into con. A dead/stunned glass cannon because of one fortitude based spell is a glass cannon not doing damage.

[Flip]

A few suggestions

1. ) Have you considered Sorccerer class? They are pretty much designed to make things go BOOM. They have less spell selection but they can cast those spells more times per day and they have no spell restrictions.

So they are very good if you want to be a *nuker*, i.e focus on meting out punishment and arguably do this better than a wizard. Wizards can have a wider array of spells however.

For example I am playing a dragon bloodline sorcer (get to shapechange into a dragon a later levels). Because I pick Golden Dragon I get

+ 1 Dmg per dmg dice on fire spells. This means on a lvl 2 spell Burning Arc that has 10D6 at max lvl. Normally the dmg would be 10 - 60 dmg. With bloodline it is now 20 - 70 dmg, nice extra to points of dmg.

2.) Regardless of class you should consider taking Point Blank Shot & Precise Shot at lvl 1 or soon as possible. Many spells are ranged touch spells that require you to make a ranged attack to hit. These two feets give a bit more accuracy but also remove the heavy -4 to hit penalty from attacking in melee range.

3.) If you are going to use ray spells then it is even worth it to take weapon prof - ray since again nothing worse than missing with your spells.

4.) Have dex min 14 as this gives you +2 to hit with ranged touch spells. If you want to use melee touch spells (example shocking grasp) you need Melee hit (i.e strength). Wouldn't recommend it, those are more for Magus class.

[[Brizby]]

Thanks guys, I came from games like Baulders Gate so this game seems a bit more indepth than I am used to.

[Weaver]

Sorcerer have been covered, so the other option for wizard is with the prestige class arcane trickster:
4 level of wizard
1 level of rogue, take special ability that gives +1d6 sneak attack
10 level of arcane trickster
5level to wizard to finish

With that you apply sneak attack on all your day spells (they need 2 feats to be accurate though, precise shot & point balnnk shot)

You just trade 1 caster level and gain lots of utilities on addition

Sorcerer bwould be more straightforward though

[corisai]

Originally posted by Weaver:

Sorcerer have been covered, so the other option for wizard is with the prestige class arcane trickster:
4 level of wizard
1 level of rogue, take special ability that gives +1d6 sneak attack
10 level of arcane trickster
5level to wizard to finish

With that you apply sneak attack on all your day spells (they need 2 feats to be accurate though, precise shot & point balnnk shot)

You just trade 1 caster level and gain lots of utilities on addition

Sorcerer bwould be more straightforward though

or just take Octavia who already have this build and have more-or-less adequate stats (suprisingly).

Sneak attack will work not only with ray spells but all spells that require ranged touch attack and deal damage.

[Pestilence]

Alchemist (Vivisectionist) would probably be better than Rogue for securing sneak attacks.

[Rage]

Originally posted by Roadie:

For a glass cannon wizard, you should dump Strength as low as possible, so don't even bother using a bow because the damage would be the same as a cantrip anyway, and the cantrips use ranged touch attacks so they're more likely to hit.

If you want to mostly make stuff explode, focus on Evocation, and the feats Spell Focus and Spell Penetration to boost your spell DCs. Your main stat is Int more than anything else (boosts spell DCs and number of spells you can memorize), with Dex secondary because it adds to your AC and ranged attack rolls.

For the spells to use, try and get things that either have a guaranteed effect on a ranged touch, or that don't use an attack roll and have a partial effect even if the enemy successfully saves against them. Watch out for area effects, though, because if they just target "creatures" rather than "enemies" they'll also affect your allies!

Bows are Dex based not streangth, they are also counted as ranged to hit and fall into that category which bows and AC are the only reasons to put points into Dex and Dump Str

[Marcos_DS]

Originally posted by Rage:

Bows are Dex based not streangth, they are also counted as ranged to hit and fall into that category which bows and AC are the only reasons to put points into Dex and Dump Str

I think he is mostly talking about the str-to-damage for composite bows, which is a major factor for characters that use the bow as their main source of damage dealing (like ekun)